The present invention concerns a method for the automatic exchange of personal information in order to search for affinities, for example, but not only, usable in car pooling, that is, sharing the same vehicle by two or more persons so as to make a journey together. The same method can be applied in numerous other contexts where there is a need to exchange personal information in an automatic and controlled manner, for example, in the fields of health, civil defense, the search for personal affinities, games.
Car pooling is known, which consists of sharing vehicles for the movements of a plurality of users and provides the use of the same private vehicle by several people who regularly travel identical or very similar routes and who, otherwise, would have to travel with their own vehicle. The obvious benefits are a reduction in traffic, pollution, parking problems, and stress. One difficulty in promoting car pooling is the need to identify the people who travel similar routes, even though they are people with whom there are no direct contacts.
Known systems for searching affinities are based on analyzing centralized databases with information provided to the system by the users. To search for affinities in general and common routes for car pooling in particular, the user at present has to communicate his/her information to a database, inside which comparisons are then made and affinities identified. All this is generally done by means of web-based services or on Internet portals specialized in providing services of this type. The European patent application EP-A-1-519-288 is known, which, although it describes a first form of decentralized, non-web-based car pooling, is an invasive system which requires the continuous and active participation by the user for the correct and effective functioning of the system. The patent NL100183C is also known which, like the web-based systems, has the disadvantage that it has a limited scalability as the number of users grows, since all the information in their databases has to be crossed, since typically they do not have a way of selecting the pairs of users who have had the opportunity, in some circumstance, of being near each other, and who therefore can really be interested in having their affinities signaled.
The patent application US-A-20050250552 is also known, which shows a more general case of “social introduction system” for the dissemination of information concerning affinities. A disadvantage of this and the previously cited known systems is their limited security, since the database memorizes the information permanently, some of which is even confidential, of all the users, and hence represents an extremely critical element. If security were breached, for example by hackers, all the confidential information of the users could become public and be used for malicious purposes or in any case not expressly authorized by some of the users.
The following scientific publications are also known: Eagle N., and Pentland A.: “Social Serendipity: Proximity Sensing and Cueing” MIT MEDIA LABORATORY TECHNICAL NOTE 580, [ONLINE] 31 May 2004 and Eagle N., and Pentland A.: “Social Serendipity: Mobilizing Social Software” IEEE PERVASIVE COMPUTING, SPECIAL ISSUE: THE SMART PHONE, [ONLINE] 1 May 2005.
Both substantially describe an application called Serendipity, which is also the subject of US-A-20050250552, and exploits an architecture based on the function of Bluetooth devices integrated into the cell phones to identify each other by means of a single BTID identifier and to identify other BTIDs received from other Bluetooth devices located in geographical proximity. A cell phone of a new Serendipity user is suitably configured and the first time it is switched on it is connected to the Serendipity network, managed by an Apache web server. The latter automatically creates a new profile which contains the phone number and the BTID of the new user.
The new user can also integrate his/her own created profile with other information by means of a computer connected via Internet to the Apache web server. The profile of each user, with all the personal information, is permanently memorized in a MySQL database, which the Apache web server accesses.
Every time a user's cell phone receives the BTID of another cell phone, a local archive, or log file, of the phone is updated, which contains all the BTIDs received. Moreover, when a BTID that is not in the log file is received, the cell phone connects via GPRS to the Apache web server and transmits the new BTID. The Apache web server identifies the personal profile of the user associated with the new BTID received, processes the profile of the cell phone that is connected and the profile of the new BTID and generates an affinity score between the two profiles. If the affinity score is acceptable for the user of the cell phone that is connected, the Apache web server transmits to the latter all the uncoded information relating to the new BTID, such as a photograph of the user, personal data, contact address, to allow direct contact between the two users.
The Serendipity application described in the above scientific publications has the serious disadvantage that it does not guarantee the privacy of its users, since it is not possible to verify the real identity, whether malicious or trustworthy, either of the server that sends the sensitive information, or of the recipient who receives said information. Moreover, by transmitting the users' personal information uncoded, the system does not provide strict procedures to guarantee the security against third parties of the data transmitted from and to the Apache web server. Another disadvantage is that the sensitive information is memorized permanently in the database associated with the web server and is always potentially accessible by an ill-intentioned person.
A purpose of the present invention is to achieve a method to search for affinities which is scalable, which prevents the sensitive data contained therein from being undesirably divulged.
The Applicant has devised, tested and embodied the present invention to overcome the shortcomings of the state of the art and to obtain these and other purposes and advantages.